My 2 year old BPR hen died the day after being dewormed, so I decided to do a partial necropsy to see if worms clogging her intestines were what killed her. My findings were inconclusive (I did rule out egg-bound and worm intestation), but don't know why she died 1 day after receiving the valbazen, when she was fine the day before.

I did not dissect every single organ - I was mostly looking for worms or something obvious.

A view of the liver while in the body;

This photo is reversed from the previous one - the left side where the fat is, is the cloaca area (the amount of fat there surprised me). There were no eggs in her body - she hadn't started laying again since molting. I noticed white liquid down in her clocoa (looking at it from the inside cavity).

The liver - the top, left piece shows the color of the underneath, while the right piece shows a top view. The heart is on the left and the spleen is on the right.

The top pile of fat came from the hen's lower area, near her vent/clocoa as seen in the 2nd pic I posted. I'm not sure how much fat there should be and where it should be located on a chicken - this seemed like a lot to me. Also shown is the gizzard, covered in fat. The inside of her crop looked normal - still had feed waiting to be digested. The gizzard also looked normal and had feed, along with pebbles in it.

The pile of intestines. After removing the organs and taking a picture of them, I pulled out the pile of intestines so that I could look for worms. The intestines were almost impossible to separate and straighten out like you see in online pics. I finally gave up and cut into them while they were still together. I only found 1 round worm and that was found inside what might be one of the ceca - there could have been a few more somewhere, but not an infestation.

We did find 2 separate earthworm looking things, but are assuming they must be the ceca. I expected the ceca to be attached to an intestine -- these 2 things seemed to be unattached to anything - both ends of each one were free, yet they were bound up in the mess of intestines. One was about 9 inches long and the other was 3-4 inches long.

I slit it open and there was a little light green liquid on one end, along with tiny white things (Tapeworm eggs?). On the other side, about 2 inches from the end, there was a dark green, thick material (I took a pic). My impression was that it looked like a big earthworm, but it was not flat or segmented, so it couldn't be a tapeworm. Was this the ceca?

The only thing I see that is unusual to me is the amount of fat. All the organs look normal, except for one lob of the liver. Was the liver lob damaged when being taken out? It should be completely smooth.

Quote:Yes, I did have trouble getting the liver out without damaging it.

When you say the amount of fat is unusal - Do you mean that she had an excessive amount of fat? She was a bit thin (and so were some of the other hens), which is one reason I dewormed them. I was surprised to see so much fat, when she was not a heavy chicken. The fat was not all over, but seemed to be very thick around the crop, around the gizzard, and down where her eggs would be before being laid - the heart had some fatty tissue on it too.

I have processed a lot of birds in the past 3 years. I have never seen fat like that on them. The fat is very yellow. If it was around the crop, she may have not been able to swallow very easily.
Her heart wasn't very large, but the fat there is not normal as far as I know. I have had meat birds that were nearly dying of heart failure that didn't have that much fat on them.

Are you sure that was fat? Was it attached to anything or loose inside.

I ask because I put a hen down that was suffering from EYP. When I cut her open there was a lot of yellowish material that looked like that. It wasn't fat but rather egg yolks that had made it into her body cavity.

There are no tapeworms that I can see. Tapeworms are whittish/off white in color and if you look at them with a magnifying glass...they are flat and you can easily see horizontal lines across their bodies, as you already know. If there arnt any tapeworms, there arnt any segments.

Yes, I agree about the amount of fat & the bright yellow color of it. That's an awful lot attached to her heart & gizzard, not to mention the amount you were able to make into a pile, her intestines even look like there's a lot of that yellow fatty tissue all in there. Can you maybe describe how that fatty tissue felt? I'm referencing the other poster who mentioned it was yolk material in her chicken (I'd have expected after a period of time it would be reabsorbed & not pile up in fat-like forms), but odd because you said there weren't any eggs (you didn't see any developing yolks on her ovaries??)... But when you mentioned the discharge under her (before she died, I think it was) some posters were speculating about internal laying then...

I'm still sorry you lost your girl, & was so hoping when you did this, there would be a clear 'reason'.